The way of Holiness

I have it in my head that the Pharisees were sticklers for the law. Don't you? This is what most people think of when they think of the Pharisees...legalism! However, what the Pharisees had in mind, what they were so legalistic about, was not so much the law of God as it was their interpretation of God's law, and even more specifically, their own man-made traditions. Man-made laws.

Mark 7:8 "For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do."
Mark 7:9 "And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition."

In this light, one can view the behavior of much of Churchianity today as being rather legalistic, much like the Pharisees, in that they cling tenaciously to their own laws, customs and rituals, (legalism!) and deny that God's law (moral, ethical, civil) is still binding for us today. Not even the Pharisees dared attempt to completely do away with God's law.

"Ye shall be holy; for I am holy", said God. Leviticus 11:44 But how in the world do we do that? Through God's law, the way of holiness.

Grace & Peace,
Joshuah

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RJ Rushdoony, Vol. 1, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 6-7

"In analyzing now the nature of biblical law, it is important to note first that, for the Bible, law is revelation. The Hebrew word for law is torah, which means instruction, authoritative instruction."

"The law is the revelation of God and His righteousness. There is no ground in scripture for despising the law. Neither can the law be relegated to the Old Testament, and grace to the new."

"There is no contradiction between law and grace. The question in James' Epistle is faith and works, not faith and law. Judaism had made law the mediator between God and man, and between God and the world. It was this view of law, not the law itself, which Jesus attacked.. As Himself the Mediator, Jesus rejected the law as mediator in order to re-establish the law in its God-appointed role as law, the way of holiness. He established the law by dispensing forgiveness as the law-giver in full support of the law as the convicting word which makes men sinners. The law was rejected only as mediator and as the source of justification. Jesus fully recognized the law, and obeyed the law. It was only the absurd interpretations of the law he rejected."

The Religious origins of Law

I want for those Christians who say that we do not need to follow God's law any longer, but emphasize that we do need to follow man's law, to carefully consider the following:

"Law is in every culture religious in origin. Because law governs man and society, because it establishes and declares the meaning of justice and righteousness, law is inescapably religious, in that it establishes in practical fashion the ultimate concerns of a culture. Accordingly, a fundamental and necessary premise in any and every study of law must be, first, a recognition of this religious nature of law." RJ Rushdoony, Vol. 1, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 4

Also:

"Modern humanism, the religion of the state, locates law in the state and thus makes the state, or the people as they find expression in the state, the god of the system." Ibid. p. 5

I am truly saddened to have realized while typing this paragraph that many Christians today, Christians who will say on the one hand that we are no longer required to follow God's perfect law, will, when confronted with something completely biblical yet illegal according to humanisms current, rather fluid law systems (such as homeschooling in the recent past, or perhaps plural marriage in the future), run off and grab their bibles, ruffle through the pages, and find the verses from Paul (Romans 13:1-7) that tells us that we must obey the law of the land! Have they forgotten Daniel? What about Acts 5:27-29? Whom is it that they really serve, God or man?

Grace & Peace,
Joshuah

The Validity of Biblical Law

"A central characteristic of the churches and of modern preaching and Biblical teaching is antinomianism, an anti-law position. The antinomian believes that faith frees the Chrsitian from the law, so that he is not outside the law but is rather dead to the law. There is no warrant whatsoever in Scripture for antinomianism. The expression, "dead to the law," is indeed in Scripture (Gal. 2:9; Rom. 7:4), but it has reference to the believer in relationship to the atoning work of Christ as the believer's representative and substitute; the believer is dead to the law as an indictment, a legal sentence of death against him, Christ having died for him, but the believer is alive to the law as the righteousness of God. The purpose of Christ's atoning work was to restore man to a position of covenant-keeping instead of covenant breaking, to enable man to keep the law by freeing man "from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:4). Man is restored to a position of law-keeping. The law thus has a position of centrality in man's indictment (as a sentence of death against man the sinner), in man's redemption (in that Christ died, Who although the perfect law-keeper as the new Adam, died as man's substitute), and in man's sanctification (in what man grows in grace as he grows in law-keeping, for the law is the way of sanctification)."

RJ Rushdoony, Vol. 1, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 1-2,